The GreenJackets Jackets Association The Royal Royal Green Association
Yorkshire Branch We continue to meet at the TA Centre in Wakefield on the fourth Tuesday in the month from March to October inclusively. The branch officers are: President: Capt ABC (Kit) Dollard 3RGJ Chairman: Thomas (Charles) Conlin 1RGJ Treasurer: John Woods KRRC Secretary: Stuart Anderson RB The Branch is financially secure despite the dwindling numbers. We have seventeen members remaining who served in the RGJ or its antecedent regiments. We also have honorary members and associate members. About half of our veteran members find it difficult to attend our meetings due to declining health and mobility. Contact is kept with everyone mainly through Minutes which also serve as news letters. This year 2018 we have lost three members and gained one. Brian Craven KRRC died early in the year shortly after his 80th birthday; Joyce Williams died in the spring and her husband Fred followed her in the in the early summer. Fred Williams RB served in Berlin at the time of the Berlin Air lift and had been our Chairman since he helped form the Branch in 1997. Tom Conlin was unanimously voted to succeed Fred. He and his wife Sue are also members of the North East Branch. Since the spring meeting of the Association, members of the Branch attended the annual lunch at Woolley Park Golf Club, which is situation close to Barnsley. Shortly after this event some of our members attended the unveiling of a memorial in honour of those in the KOYLI/LI who served in Malaya. It takes the form of a rifleman carrying a Bren gun and is placed in a pleasant garden within one of the Doncaster parks close to the KOYLI museum. The memorial was unveiled on the first of August, a date dear to the Yorkshire regiment, as it is Minden Day. A white rose adorned every breast including those of the RGJ. The secretary attended the annual commemoration of the battle of Kohima. This took place in the garden of York Minster where the Kohima Memorial is located. Afterwards at the lunch held at Imphal Barracks the secretary was in the company of a Japanese lady who upon hearing a discussion of the fall of Singapore said that if the roles were reversed in that battle the Japanese would not have surrendered. "They lived by a different code," she added. Those who were able attended the gathering of the veterans of the Northern Ireland campaign at the Arboretum. Hugh Goudge gave an exuberant report to the membership at the following meeting and commented on the number of Generals on parade. He said that the bulk of those present were either from the RGJ or from the KOYLI/LI. One of our members, Ernie Blanchard, has the honour of serving in both regiments. Hugh and the Secretary, reinforced by Hugh's wife Julia and daughter, attended Remembrance Day parades at Nostell Priory and Wakefield on consecutive weekends. The one at the Priory is always held the week before the official day. The same stalwarts paraded with the Veterans Guard at the Rifles Freedom of Wakefield event in September where the Secretary was unexpectedly 34
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Swift & Bold Journal 2018
Swift & Bold Journal 2018
